"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

The Case for a Reboot of U.S. Cuba Policy

"They are selling a virtual reality as if it was real change, and that is fraud. It is outrageous." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Cuban opposition leader interviewed on October 3, 2011

The New York Times has published an Editorial titled "Undoing All the Good Work on Cuba" that rehashes Obama Administration talking points that advance a specific policy agenda, although ignoring the current situation, changing policies over the past half century, security concerns, and how sanctions on the Castro regime have protected US taxpayers.

During the eight years of the Obama Administration the situation for Cuban opposition leaders became more precarious and this was demonstrated with the deaths of high profile figures that could have over seen a democratic transition such as Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Laura Inés Pollán Toledo.The current situationLevels of violence against dissidents worsened while the old totalitarian patterns of repression still endure. Rising violent repression
against political dissidents in Cuba, including crippling and disfiguring machete
attacks, became a high profile regime tactic starting in 2013. The case of Sirley Avila Leon in May of 2015 is well documented, even if it is not widely well known because The New York Times did not find it "fit to print" but thankfully others have.

Machete attack victims 2013 - 2015

There is no right to education in Cuba if you dissent from the official line. Fếlix Yuniel Llerena López, a 20 year-old religious freedom
defender, was expelled
from the Enrique José Varona Pedagogical
University in Havana on May 8, 2017 following a visit to the United
States. 18-year-old journalism student, Karla Pérez González, was
expelled from Marta Abreu University of Santa Clara for “political
reasons” on April 12, 2017 and her expulsion ratified three days later on April 15th. 24 year old David Mauri Cardoso was expelled from the University of Cienfuegos in February of 2017 after he honestly answered politically loaded
questions in what was supposed to be a Spanish literature exam.

If you have a relative who is a dissident, although you are not, you can still be fired from your job. Professor Dalila Rodriguez from the University of Las Villas was expelled from her job on May 9, 2017 because her father, Leonardo Rodriguez is a dissident.

There is no right to travel for Cuban nationals and dissenters are regularly denied exit and entry. Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, and Sayli Navarro were denied the right to travel by the Castro regime on June 4, 2017. Amnesty International has recognized Eduardo Cardet as a new Cuban prisoner of conscience and has an urgent action underway for his release.

What is taking place in Cuba is fake change. The regime is working to achieve regime succession and prevent a democratic transition in Cuba.

Policy changes over the past half century

The argument made by the Obama Administration and repeated by The New York Times that "hard-line sanctions-based approach was in place for more than 50 years
after the 1959 revolution and never produced what anti-Castro activists
hoped would be the result" is both a straw man argument and untrue.

President Carter ended Cuba travel embargo and began normalizing relations in 1977

On April 27, 1977 representatives of the Carter Administration and the
Castro regime sat down and personally negotiated an international
fishery agreement. This was the first time since 1958
that any officials of the United States government sat down with
representatives of the Castro regime to formally negotiate an
agreement.

President Carter in an interview with Robert Fulghum on December 19, 1996 quoted on page 310 of the book Conversations with Carter said: "When I had only been in office two months in 1977, I opened up all travel for American citizens to go to Cuba and vice versa.
And we opened up an entry section, which is just one step short of a
full embassy in both Havana and Washington. And those offices, by the
way, are still open."

Outcomes of Carter normalization with Castro regime

Robert A. Pastor,
of The Carter Center in July 1992 in the report "The Carter
Administration and Latin America: A Test of Principle" summed the
outcome of the Carter policy on Cuba: "In November 1977 there were 400 Cuban military advisers in Ethiopia; by
April 1978 there were 17,000 Cuban troops there serving under a Soviet
general.

The Castro regime also played a crucial role in the Sandinista victory
in Nicaragua while the Carter Administration imposed sanctions on the
Somoza regime when it refused to pursue democratic reforms. According to
Robert Pastor: "Somoza pretended the sanctions had no effect on him. He doubled the size
of the National Guard and evidently believed he was secure. However, by
May 1979, with Cuban President Fidel Castro's help, the three
Sandinista factions had united and established a secure and ample arms
flow from Cuba through Panama and Costa Rica."

During the Mariel crisis of 1980, when over 125,000 Cubans sought to
flee the island, the Cuban dictator sought to save face by selectively releasing approximately 12,000 violent criminals or individuals who were mentally ill into the exodus.

Towards the end of the Carter Administration the discovery of a Soviet ground forces brigade operating on Cuban territory
and the ineptness in handling the Mariel boat lift crisis spelled not
only the end of the policy but was also a contributing factor to the
defeat of President Carter during his 1980 re-election bid.

This first attempt at normalizing relations saw a worsening human rights situation in Cuba, a migration crisis and reversals in US interests in the region.

President Reagan restores Cuba embargo in 1981 and challenges Castro regime on international stage

The
Castro regime's response was to end an immigration agreement and
suspend the visits to Cuba by Cubans living in the United States. The Reagan Administration named former Cuban political
prisoner Armando Valladares
Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and made human
rights in Cuba a priority there. The end result was that for the first
and last time Amnesty International, the International Committee of the
Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Commission were able to visit Cuban
political prisoners inside the island. There was no Cuba migration crisis during the Reagan Administration.

President Obama pursues normalization of relations with Castro regime in 2009
The Obama Administration beginning in 2009 loosened sanctions on the
Castro regime. On his watch concluding on December 17, 2014 the Obama
administration freed all five members of the WASP spy network, including Gerardo Hernandez
-- who was serving two life sentences, one of them for conspiracy to
murder four members of Brothers to the Rescue
murdered during the previous attempt at normalizing relations during
the Clinton Administration. They de-linked the pursuit of full
diplomatic relations from the rise in human rights violations in Cuba and in the region by Cuban state security.

The Obama Administration marginalized dissidents and downplayed their importance early on in 2009 refusing to meet with them; the Obama State Department threatened the daughter of
a martyred dissident in order to protect the sensibilities of the
Castro regime's foreign minister in 2015. Not to mention claiming that
there was no room for dissidents at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana later that same year.

President Obama went to Cuba with his family in March of 2016, in the midst of a human rights crackdown, and legitimized Raul Castro's regime before an international audience. In October of 2016. Less than a year after a fleeing refugee was shot in the back in the spring of 2015 by a Cuban state security agent. Mr. Obama issued a Presidential Policy Directive ordering U.S. intelligence agencies to share information with the Castro regime's secret police. In January of 2017, in one of his final acts, President Obama further gutted the Cuban Adjustment Act ushering in the wholesale deportation of Cubans fleeing to the United States.

On the economic front the Obama White House repeatedly claimed to have achieved $6 billion in trade with Cuba
under the new policy but the actual number according to the U.S. census
bureau is $380.5 million dollars in trade in goods with Cuba.

The consequences in the region have also been negative. The Castro regime's military and intelligence services have been heavily involved in the attempt to build and impose a totalitarian regime in Venezuela for the past 18 years. Furthermore in Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Ecuador regimes with links to Havana pursue an anti-democratic agenda. Yoani Sanchez, the Cuban dissident blogger journalist, wrote a May 28, 2017 entry titled "The Kremlin is Back." The Russians returned to Cuba, and made new inroads into Latin America during the Obama years.

Conclusion

The New York Times has a terrible track record in Cuba and its latest editorial continues that lamentable tradition trying to make the case for the Trump Administration to continue the failed policies of the Obama Administration on Cuba. However, even a broken clock is right twice a day and The New York Times on December 8, 2016 reported how increased U.S. tourism to Cuba has meant more food shortages for Cubans because food production is geared to tourists. The record indicates that the case for tightening sanctions, and pushing a human rights centered policy will best serve both U.S. national interests and the prospects for a non-violent democratic transition.

The good work on Cuba was undone by the Obama Administration when it prioritized engaging with the Castro dictatorship, marginalized Cuban democrats, ignored the regime's support for outlaw regimes, and terrorist groups all in the service of a flawed policy.